A fierce California<\/p>\n
wildfire expanded Sunday, burning several thousand acres and forcing
\nevacuations as tens of millions of Americans sweltered through scorching
\nheat.<\/p>\n
More than 2,000 firefighters backed by 17 helicopters have been deployed
\nagainst the Oak Fire, which broke out Friday near Yosemite National Park, the
\nCalifornia Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) said in a
\nreport.<\/p>\n
But two days after it began, the blaze has already consumed more than 15,600
\nacres (6,313 hectares) and remains zero percent contained, the report said,
\nadding that heat combined with low humidity would “hamper” efforts Sunday.<\/p>\n
“Extreme drought conditions have led to critical fuel moisture levels,”
\naccording to CAL FIRE’s report.<\/p>\n
Described as “explosive” by officials, the blaze has left ashes, gutted
\nvehicles and twisted remains of properties in its wake, as emergency
\npersonnel worked to evacuate residents and protect structures in its path.<\/p>\n
It has already destroyed 10 properties and damaged five others, with
\nthousands more threatened.<\/p>\n
More than 6,000 people had been evacuated, said Hector Vasquez, a CAL FIRE
\nofficial.<\/p>\n
“It was scary when we left because we were getting ashes on us, but we had
\nsuch a visual of this billowing. It just seemed like it was above our house
\nand coming our way really quickly,” one woman who had to be evacuated, Lynda
\nReynolds-Brown, told local news station KCRA.<\/p>\n
“We started getting our stuff together, and that’s when I went back up the
\nhill and looked and I’m like, ‘Oh my God.’ It was coming fast,” her husband
\nAubrey Brown told the station.<\/p>\n
California Governor Gavin Newsom on Saturday declared a state of emergency in
\nMariposa County, citing “conditions of extreme peril to the safety of persons
\nand property.”<\/p>\n
In recent years, California and other parts of the western United States have
\nbeen ravaged by huge and fast-moving wildfires, driven by years of drought
\nand a warming climate.<\/p>\n
– Gore blasts ‘inaction’ –<\/p>\n
Evidence of global warming could be seen elsewhere in the country, as 85
\nmillion Americans in more than a dozen states were under a weekend heat
\nadvisory.<\/p>\n
The crisis prompted former vice president Al Gore, a tireless climate
\nadvocate, to issue stark warnings Sunday about “inaction” by US lawmakers.<\/p>\n
Asked whether he believes US President Joe Biden should declare a climate
\nemergency, which would grant him additional policy powers, Gore was blunt.<\/p>\n
“Mother Nature has already declared it a global emergency,” he told ABC News
\ntalk show “This Week.”<\/p>\n
And “it’s due to get much, much worse, and quickly,” he said separately on
\nNBC.<\/p>\n
But he also suggested that recent crises, including deadly heat waves in
\nEurope, could serve as a wake-up call for members of US Congress who have so
\nfar refused to embrace efforts to combat climate change.<\/p>\n
“I think these extreme events that are getting steadily worse and more severe
\nare really beginning to change minds,” he said.<\/p>\n
The central and northeast US regions have faced the brunt of the extreme
\nheat, which is forecast to lessen somewhat on Monday.<\/p>\n
“Searing heat will continue across the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast tonight
\nbefore the upper trough over Canada dips down into the region to moderate
\ntemperatures a bit tomorrow,” the National Weather Service said Sunday
\nafternoon.<\/p>\n
But not all regions are expected to cool down: temperatures of 100 or more
\ndegrees Fahrenheit (37 degrees Celsius) are forecast in the coming days
\nacross parts of eastern Kansas and Oklahoma into southern Missouri and
\nnorthern Arkansas.<\/p>\n
Not even the usually cool Pacific Northwest will escape the far-reaching
\nheat, with high temperatures “forecast to steadily rise over the next few
\ndays, leading to the possibility for records to be broken,” the weather
\nservice added.<\/p>\n
Cities have been forced to open cooling stations and increase outreach to at-
\nrisk communities such as the homeless and those without access to air
\nconditioning.<\/p>\n
Various regions of the globe have been hit by extreme heat waves in recent
\nmonths, such as Western Europe in July and India in March to April, incidents
\nthat scientists say are an unmistakable sign of a warming climate.BSS\/AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A fierce California wildfire expanded Sunday, burning several thousand acres and forcing evacuations as tens of millions of Americans sweltered through scorching heat. More than 2,000 firefighters backed by 17 helicopters have been deployed against the Oak Fire, which broke out Friday near Yosemite National Park, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29078,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-4","category-14"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/deshnews24.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/deshnews24.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/deshnews24.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deshnews24.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deshnews24.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29071"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/deshnews24.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29071\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29079,"href":"https:\/\/deshnews24.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29071\/revisions\/29079"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deshnews24.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/29078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/deshnews24.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deshnews24.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deshnews24.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}